Resistance to Enslavement

What is the attitude of African traditional religion vis-à-vis oppressive rulers and oppressive institutions such as the slave trade, colonialism, or local dictatorship? To raise such a question is to address the problematic issue of whether religion per se is a force of progress and liberation or an obscurantist weapon of mass destruction. The answer to such a question is made extremely complicated by the complex history of Africa. On the one hand, forms of slavery existed in Africa, apparently introduced by Islam, as they did in ancient Greece, Rome, Christian Europe, Asia, and the Islamic world. On the other hand, the principle of Bumuntu, which stands at the core of African traditional religion, bears witness to high moral standards that condemn all forms of enslavement as contrary to the will of the ancestors and as a form of evil that hinders one's ability to join the village of the ancestors and to enjoy a blissful existence in the afterlife. It is clear that slavery in Africa was viewed as a form of punishment. To enslave another human being or to wage war recklessly was to partake in radical forms of social and moral evil. This is why slave traders and African dictators are referred to as witches by common folks.

In a world where historically Christianity and Islam have been heralded as paths of liberation from traditional oppressive customs, the liberating nature of traditional religion has been largely overlooked or obscured. Yet it is traditional religion that provided a moral compass to millions of people throughout centuries and that still guides the existence of many today. The fact that colonial regimes heavily targeted traditional religion as the breeding ground of rebellion is an eloquent [Page 567]acknowledgment of the African spirit of resistance to oppression. It is therefore imperative to make a careful distinction between the moral ideals of African spirituality and the deplorable behavior of individuals throughout history. Careful studies of religion will not recklessly identify the spiritual ideals of Hinduism with Sati and the caste system. Hindus readily point to Brahman and the virtues of Ahimsa and Yoga. Likewise, when asked to define Christianity, Christians point to Jesus' teaching on “loving the enemy” and turning the other cheek, rather than crusades, inquisition, colonialism, and persecution of women and members of other religions. The same hermeneutical principle should be applied to Africa. African spirituality is to be found in the ideals of genuine personhood (Bumuntu) and in the numerous examples of resistance, rather than the lapses of some ubuesque tyrants and caligulan dictators.

From time immemorial, religion as the soul and hope of hopeless people has always functioned as the ultimate source of liberation. This is particularly the case with a continent that for centuries has been trampled underfoot by all forms of oppression. Africans on the continent and in the diaspora have always turned to the ancestors and Shakapanga, the creator, to find refuge and the power to resist enslavement.

In 1791, enslaved Africans led a successful revolutionary war that propelled Haiti to become the first “black republic,” that is, the first black country to gain independence by throwing off successfully the yoke of chattel slavery. Eighty-five years before this Haitian revolution, a young African lady named Kimpa Vita was burned at the stake in 1706 by Christian Portuguese authorities in the Kongo Kingdom for waging a resistance movement against the slave trade and for challenging the racist theological underpinnings of the Catholic Church and its complicit involvement in the slave trade. These acts of defiance and rebellion were not an imitation of foreign ideals of democracy, but a genuine expression of traditional ideals of the good life. Indeed, Kimpa Vita's revolution occurred 70 years before the American Revolution and 83 years before the French revolution, at a time when Western powers and their Christian missionaries were engaged in oppressive colonial ventures legitimized by the civilizing mission ideology. Both the Haitian and Kongolese rebellions were steeped in a liberation theology profoundly shaped by African traditional religion. African traditional spirit of Bumuntu (liberty and human dignity) has crossed the Atlantic carrying the torch of liberation struggle into the Americas. It is now widely held in academic circles that the Haitian revolution was stimulated and sustained mainly by Vodu, a religion of African origin. It is also largely understood that the most prestigious leaders of the Haitian revolutionary war, such as Toussaint L'Ouverture, Dessalines, Christophe, Boukman, and Makandal, were all steeped in Vodu rituals and philosophy. In fact, the plans for a war of liberation from slavery and colonialism were laid by the Vodu priestesses Mambo Mariesaint Dede Bazile and Cecile Fatiman and the Vodun priest Houngan Boukman during a religious service held on the night of August 14, 1791, at Bois Caiman in the northern part of Haiti.

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